Back in the sands...

Afternoon all!

Another week goes by and I do another trip to Saudi Arabia, my most favourite place in the world, not! I did a job in the middle of the desert in the south of Saudi Arabia. This site was as remote as they come. We were 200 km from Sharoura and 160 km from Najran. Nothing but the cement plant in between. The only thing that was good was the drive back to Najran. We were on the main road to Najran when the saudi driver asked me if I fancied a short cut. Well, driving the deserted roads in the south is boring at the best of times so I agreed. It should knock of about half an hour of the 2 1/2 hour drive...

So the guy hits the brake and leaves the road and starts racing across the sands!

At some point he tells me that one of his mates has a camel farm just up the road (well, road...) and would I like to see it... So we swung by and low and behold, in the middle of nowhere there was this herd of camels eating the sparse grass... The tents were where his mate lived... They were bedouins...

Thats the camels... Smelly bastards...

This was the view 360 degrees around for half an hour... Luckily we were driving a big Toyota Landcruiser Patrol with big balloon tires on it...

When we finally made it back to the road this was the first availabe gas station... Modern stuff 'ey?

When I finally got to England after a two hour flight to Dammam, a 7 hour wait at Dammam airport, a 6 hour flight to Amsterdam and a 1 hour flight to Heathrow, I arrived at 7 in the morning and it was snowing. So in 24 hours from 35 degree heat to -2 degrees was a bit of a shock to the system... Then when we were bombing down the M25 we saw at least 5 shunts and crashes in the snow on the motorway. When we made it to the A120 my taxi driver took a corner a bit too fast and he lost it. We ended up sliding across two lanes before we ended up skirting along a banked side of the road. The car nearly ended up on the roof but with an incredible amount of luck the car swerved back on to the road and we managed to get back to Sudbury with only some cosmetic damage to the grill and front bumper... Scared the crap out of me though... (Ron, if you want to wake me up in the taxi you can just shout you know...)

By the way, KLM was on top form again. They lost all my luggage on the way back. Saved me having to wait on my suitcases and having to carry them myself. They dropped them off half a day later, incompetent bastards... At least I have made Platinum again on Skyteam...

Next week I believe I am off to Ecuador. I have to go back to Guayaquil for a small 4 day job. After that I should be Turkey for a week and that should be it for the year... Thank god, it has been a hectic year, I will not forget 2008 in a hurry...

Cheerio,
Alex.